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Brand new member. need your expertise and help. GUSTAV EMIL URN i.d.

my first post. i want to make it a good one.

first a bit about myself. i love all things sharp. knives, axes..err..chainsaws? i am getting much better at sharpening these things too. i grew up a chef family. my stepdad, who recently passed was a fantastic chinese chef. he has some great vintage german chef knives he thoroughly abused in his career. my mom still uses them.

anyways, he instill in me a love to cook. i can rock the kitchen. he also burnt in me the love of all things sharp. i'm the guy running around ebay looking for a vintage chef's knife. my boss was heading off to the goodwill store to donate some knives. he asked me, do you want this one? i jumped on it. it is an (he says it is old) older Gustav Emil Urn chef knife. overall length is 14", blade is 9.25". handle is wood, with 3 rivits. the tang is tapered. it is thicker at the blade end and tapers to a thinner material as it heads toward the handle end. blade has some minor staining. it is shaped more like a modern chef's knife and doesnt have that thinner profile like an old Sabatier.

what knife is this? thanks for all of your help. this forum looks dangerous for someone like me

Gustav Emil Ern knives are made in Solingen,they were a rival to Wustof .If the bolster is quite thin it is an older one and more likely carbon.They were very popular high end knives in Europe amongst professionals.I still have my 22 year old Gustav boning knife but its not a brand non-europeans are that familiar with as Wustof dominated the market.

it was a fairly small German knifemaker who was known for exceptional quality. They at one point were regarded much more highly than Henckels and Wustof. where these two companies jumped on the mass production market after World War 2 Gustav did not. They believed in quality over quantity and that in the end killed them. They couldn't compete in the global market and were crushed. Their production methods were old fashioned and much more expensive. They were one of the last manufactures to employ skilled craftsman to make their knives. I think they finally gave up the ghost in the 70's or 80's after they went into receivership and eventually closed their doors. about 10 years ago or so someone decided to reopen the company under the same brand and sell vintage overstock, when that ran out they decided to make new knives and the quality that they were famous for didn't come back. They are branding themselves as a wustof or Henckels type company.
If you can find truly vintage pieces jump on them, but beware of the new pieces being sold as vintage, because they suck. I have several including one with a 16 inch blade that is so well balanced that it feels like an extension of your hand. It takes and holds an edge better than any newer German knife I have used. You can sometime find some on ebay for a great price because people don't know what they have. in short the vintage ones (pre 1980'S) are awesome, new ones not so much.
Hope this helps

I haven't lived the life I wanted, just the lives I needed too at the time.

Sounds like you have a tapered tang there and possibly the walnut handled version, is it a dark wood kinda dull grey black? If so, you quite possibly have an older one. If it looks new it maybe some of the NOS I talked about earlier.

I haven't lived the life I wanted, just the lives I needed too at the time.

Sounds like you have a tapered tang there and possibly the walnut handled version, is it a dark wood kinda dull grey black? If so, you quite possibly have an older one. If it looks new it maybe some of the NOS I talked about earlier.

yes.!! let me get a photobucket account going. this thing took and edge!! might be my sharpest knife in the mag rack!